It is common practice to provide a building, for example, a light steel framed industrial building, with a brick exterior wall. Since such a brick wall may have considerable length and height, it is necessary to anchor the wall at intervals to an adjoining structure of the building. Such buildings usually also include a back-up wall which typically would include a series of spaced apart studs and some form of a wall board disposed between the studs and the brick wall. For example, it is common to use an exterior gipboard sheathing along with a separate vapor barrier sheet material about the outside of the studs and in the area between the studs and the brick wall.
In the construction of such buildings, the brick wall is built by bricklayers while other tradesmen construct other parts of the building before the brick wall is built. In many cases, to anchor the exterior brick wall, brick ties are secured to the back-up wall by a framing crew or contractor before the brick wall is constructed. Specifically, the brick ties are usually secured to individual studs of the back-up wall and are projected from the studs through the wallboard. Thereafter when the exterior brick wall is constructed, the bricklayers will cause the brick ties to be embedded in mortar between two courses of brick or block.
Brick ties are well known in the art. For example, see the brick ties disclosed in the following U.S. Pat. Nos.: 4,843,776; 6,212,841; 5,636,486; 4,021,990; and 6,209,281. The disclosures of these patents are expressly incorporated herein by reference. In such prior art, the brick ties are connected to the back-up wall structure in a variety of ways. Some of the brick ties are actually secured to the metal studs and then are projected through the adjacent wallboard such that the tie component lies exterior of the wallboard for use by a brick mason. Therefore, one of the main drawbacks to brick ties of the prior art is that they have been difficult to implement in a wall structure, and as noted above, sometimes requiring two different tradesmen in order to mount and complete the tying or anchoring arrangement.
Therefore, there has been and continues to be a need for a relatively simple brick tie that is easy to install and which can be installed and completely implemented by a brick mason.